Murilee Martin's favorite Repo Man reference has to do with Tracey Walter's assertion that one will find a Little Tree air freshener in every car. Mine's a bit more metaphysical. It's another classic Walter moment, wherein he explains his theory of the cosmic unconsciousness to Emilio Estevez's Otto. “Suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp,” muses Walter's Miller character. “Suddenly, somebody'll say like, ‘Plate,' or ‘Shrimp,' or ‘Plate o' shrimp,' outta the blue--no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either.”

On Sunday night, Maroon 5 and Foster the People--two musical groups I know of only because one is quite famous and the other is in that Nissan commercial featuring young people wearing tall hats in a Versa--performed at the Grammy awards ceremony with the Beach Boys. Or so I hear. I didn't watch, assuming my time would be better spent enjoying the Descendents' peppy, mournful cover of “Wendy” than whatever unfortunate mélange of Brain Wilson hits the academy's wizards had cooked up.

The Friday morning prior to the Grammys, I was having brunch in Los Feliz with my old friend Polly and her charge, young Donovan, a boy who can either count to two or “eight or nine,” conveniently bypassing three through seven. He is also no slouch with the ladies. Yet it wasn't the two-year-old who had an “Ooh! Shiny!” moment when a black Porsche 356 Speedster rolled by, driven by a handsome man in his early 30s with an equally attractive lady riding shotgun.

A few minutes later, Polly said to me, “Adam Levine is at the table behind you.” Donovan and I were equally unconcerned by the presence of the Maroon 5 front man. He was more interested with getting his hands on the salt shaker; I was deeply involved in my plate of chilaquiles. A few minutes later, I decided to pop outside for a cigarette. The Porsche was parked just down the block. I thought I'd have a gander.

It turned out to be a lovely example of the breed, straight from some collector-car dealer's lot in Costa Mesa. A couple stopped to gawk. Together we marveled over the car's elegant simplicity. It made me want to get home and get to work on my own 914, which compared with today's cars is as crude as a Bronze Age agricultural implement. Next to that elemental black 356 shining in the February Los Angeles sun, though, it might as well be a Carrera GT.

When I walked back into restaurant, I noted that the man sitting at what was apparently Adam Levine's table was the same guy who'd been driving the Speedster. I can't say much for his music, but I can't fault his taste in automobiles.

I was in Los Angeles because I'd been invited to attend the launch of the Tesla Model X the night before. Upon arrival at Tesla's rocket-ship-factory-adjacent design studio in Hawthorne--home of the Beach Boys--we were handed a one-sheet with few details about the car and a whole list of celebrity invitees with notes indicating what they're currently famous for--a handy crib sheet for the mainstream press. Supposedly Joel McHale was there. I really do enjoy Community. I hope NBC sees fit to return the series to its schedule soon. Oh, and there was to be a performance by Foster the People, who, of course, would be sharing the stage with Levine and Hawthorne's favorite sons in two nights' time.

I hadn't been to a Tesla event since the reveal of the Roadster back in 2006. Back then, Elon Musk was heftier, less of a public speaker. He'd yet to adopt the cult hero/Bond villain shtick he's cultivated over the past half-decade. If the introduction of the Roadster was all about the debut of what was finally a truly desirable electric car, the fête's ostensible raison d'être was almost an afterthought at the Model X preview, despite the stage time the crossover received. It was a party for a company that had survived a tumultuous, bloody five years--and one for a select group of the Tesla faithful, some of whom hooted and hollered annoyingly through Musk's speech.

Meanwhile, the sorts of things that automotive journalists care about at an event--namely a high-bandwidth wireless connection and unfettered access to the vehicle--were in short supply. From the moment we found that we had to wait to enter until the red-carpet media members finished their business, it was pretty apparent that the event wasn't for us, anyway.

That sounds like sour grapes, but it isn't. The EV game is the edgy frontier of the auto industry; everyone from Carlos Ghosn on down is throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Musk is simply doing it by courting Hollywood, by hiring the band du jour to play his party while showing off his latest toy, despite the fact that he's only sold about 2,000 electric Elise derivatives and has yet to ship his upcoming model.

I'm legitimately interested to see how the Model S does, but the fact of the matter is that Musk has kept both his companies together by a combination of innovative thinking, force of will and a not-inconsiderable dash of what feels an awful lot like smoke and mirrors.

On the other hand, naysayers asserted that the Roadster wouldn't sell, and he moved a couple thousand of them. People said he couldn't put a rocket into space, and he proved them wrong. Others suggested that Tesla wouldn't exist long enough for the Model S to see production, yet barring something unforeseen, that's mere months away from happening. That's still a long way from saying that Tesla is a seriously capable carmaking concern, but it's not nothing, either.

The truly independent car company is a rare, perhaps even mythical bird. Exclusive manufacturers such as Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Lamborghini, Maserati and Ferrari have all been gobbled up by multinational automaking concerns. Indian automaker Tata and Korean brands Hyundai and Kia have the backing of gigantic home-market conglomerates. Even McLaren and Mazda are only recently free of joined-at-the-hip partnerships with Daimler and Ford, respectively, while still retaining some ties.

Even Tesla couldn't have found its initial footing without the help of Proton-owned Lotus (an organization which might soon be looking for a new steward). Proton itself grew via a partnership with Mitsubishi. Mitsubishi, of course, had a long and important relationship with Chrysler, a concern that was purchased and disposed of by Daimler. Tesla now supplies Daimler with powertrains for its Smart Electric Drive. Plate o' shrimp?

While it might not be the wild and wooly age of the Brass Era and immediately thereafter, a period when Winton, Marmon and Locomobile battled it out for supremacy and ultimately lost to the likes of Studebaker, Nash and Packard, the EV space is the closest thing we have to an automotive Wild West these days. Pioneering Norwegian electric-car maker Think quietly exited through the kitchen last year after being passed from parent to parent. BMW is retrofitting existing vehicles with electric powertrains as a roll-up to the launch of its "i" subbrand. Renault has partnered with Bay Area upstart Better Place and at least is paying lip service to its infrastructure-heavy plan to install battery-switching stations.

The fact of the matter is that as much as the well-heeled crowd at Tesla's event whooped and yawped at its vision of the auto industry's savior, one can't discount the whims of the California Air Resources Board, the EPA, the Chinese government, Big Oil and a cadre of entrenched automotive multinationals who have survived shakeout after shakeout--and who have massive engineering resources at hand.

I'm not saying that Tesla's future necessarily looks bleak. Musk is nothing if not a force, but the company is still essentially an unproven entity. If the Roadster was proof of concept, the Model S will be proof of ability, an ability to serve customers who want a vehicle that just works. The Model X might well be proof of viability, while the mass-market “Gen III” car--supposedly due in three years--will actually be the vehicle that has to get in and mix it up with Nissan, Mitsubishi, Ford, Honda and even Tesla-supplied Toyota. Success in that arena will finally be a real testament to the company's business acumen.

Ultimately, if Tesla doesn't fail, it will be bought. That's not the cosmic unconsciousness talking; that's the history of upstarts in the auto industry.

In the meantime, I don't begrudge Musk his party, but I do recommend that if Foster the People and the recently reunited Hot Snakes are playing your town on the same night, the latter's a much better bet. That's no plate o' shrimp, either. It's not Grammy weekend in Los Angeles. It's just the pure efficacy of distilled rock 'n' roll, a measure of certainty in an uncertain time.